Mayoral rivals promote plans to Hispanics

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, July 21, 2001

Preceding what promises to be a bitter campaign, Houston's three major mayoral candidates faced off for the first time Friday at a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce luncheon and, four months before the November election, managed to play nice.

Mayor Lee Brown earned applause from the mainstream business audience by reeling off accomplishments that include a full-time Hispanic liaison to his administration, Hispanic appointments to top municipal boards, increases in city contracts to Hispanic-owned businesses and an administration dedicated to children.

"One of the most exciting stories of the Census 2000 was the fact that Hispanics are now the largest population group in Houston, this nation's fourth-largest city," said Brown, Houston's first black mayor, who is seeking his third and final term.

"Thirty-seven percent of our city's population is Hispanic. That's 730,865 Hispanics, about the same number of people who live in Jacksonville, Fla., or San Francisco.

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"Clearly, it is a responsibility of our city leadership to promote and celebrate this diversity and do so so that every person and every business has the opportunity to succeed.

"The Hispanic agenda must be empowerment."

The three top candidates, frequent adversaries at the City Council table, were asked to present what they considered the agenda for Houston's fastest-growing ethnic group and how best to achieve it. But pressed for time at the daylong chamber conference on Hispanic empowerment, Brown spoke and left, as did at-large Councilmen Orlando Sanchez and Chris Bell.

All three were well-received and warmly applauded.

Sanchez, a Republican and immigrant from Cuba who has been an outspoken Brown critic, brandished his naturalization certificate and said receiving his American citizenship was "one of the proudest moments" of his life.

"I'm here to ask for your support in accomplishing something that has never been done before, electing an Hispanic to a highly visible position that has the authority and power and support to make public policy that will be beneficial.

"Our time has definitely come," he said.

Despite his conservative GOP politics, Sanchez drew enthusiastic applause from the bipartisan business gathering at the University of Houston when he told about being approached recently by an elderly Hispanic couple. "Neither of them were shy," said Sanchez.

"I felt these feelings of pride, determination and a sense of purpose. But most important, I did understand. It is time; it is time to elect a new mayor."

Bell, a journalist turned attorney turned Democratic politician, said he has a proven record of efficiency and echoed Sanchez's tart assessment of the occasional missteps in the Brown administration.

Bell cited his commitment to "customer-driven government." He said that as chairman of the city ethics committee, he has pushed for registration of lobbyists, the online filing of campaign finance reports and a travel ordinance mandating full disclosure of who pays for trips taken by city officials.

"Those are major and dramatic reforms," said Bell.

Touching on a sore point for most Houstonians faced with seemingly perpetual and omnipresent street construction, Bell was sharply critical of Brown, by then absent.

"You can't have a world-class city when you have potholes springing up like flowers and can't count them accurately, when you have water mains breaking and water gurgling into the streets for two months at a time and people living in and around sewage and a public works director who says he simply can't handle the problem.

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"Those are not world-class attributes, and we have to turn that around."

Bell admitted that he's been unable to learn Spanish but promised that will change when his 5-year-old son enrolls in Mark Twain Elementary's dual language program this fall.